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Category talk:United States Presidential Elections
Two things: 1). I'm glad we've started using the category info as a place for nuts-and-bolts definitions of offices, events, etc. as we have here. :It is convenient, isn't it? We can't have an article on the electoral process, or on the President Pro Tem, but we need to define it if we expect people to care about it to the point that it's significant to have its category. Granted, I think most people know what an election is, or what Congress is. Maybe not Lizards. Turtle Fan 19:06, June 11, 2010 (UTC) 2). Since a majority of things in the United States categories will be named "United States Such and Such", we may want to change how they are sorted. For example, here in elections, we might be better off listing them by year, e.g. 1964 (The Guns of the South). TR 19:00, June 11, 2010 (UTC) :I thought of that but you'd end up with the exact same order you have now, only everything would be under a 1 instead of a U. Grouping them by story might be best. Wish I'd thought of that before I did all the work. Turtle Fan 19:06, June 11, 2010 (UTC) ::Hmm, yes they would. By story makes sense. Or, hell, we could just leave it alone. TR 19:07, June 11, 2010 (UTC) :::I like having them grouped first by story and then chronologically. Thanks for finishing up, I took a break to retcon the bizarre-ass running mate selections in the GotS election. On an unrelated note, I seem to recall a scene in TG where someone (Moss, I think) gets involved in a discussion of the 1860 election. That's going to have at least residual significance to any story with a Civil War POD, think it's worth writing up? Turtle Fan 19:21, June 11, 2010 (UTC) :That strikes me as dangerous precedent, since we could also justify the 1940 election, maybe the '32 and '36 elections as well, the 1933 German Election, the 1935 UK General election, and so on. TR 20:44, June 11, 2010 (UTC) ::Yes, but it would be grounded in a conversation in the TL-191 canon, in this case. :::Perhaps, but again, I bet we could find several conversations pertaining to several of my examples without trying much. I recall a few characters who were incensed that FDR had run again in 1940 in DoI. TR 21:21, June 11, 2010 (UTC) ::::Yeah, you're probably right. And anyway, on further review, we've already said everything about that conversation that needed saying in the Stephen Douglas article. Turtle Fan 21:28, June 11, 2010 (UTC) ::By the way, how about a literary note in ATL election articles with a couple of sentences on the results of the historical ones? As a hedge against hit-and-runs, and for the edification of readers? To suss out parallelism and twee jokes, perhaps? Turtle Fan 21:13, June 11, 2010 (UTC) :::That would probably be worth doing. Obviously, if the story name in the parenthesis doesn't stop hit and runs, nothing will, but the idea does fit in with our gradual allowence of parallels. TR 21:21, June 11, 2010 (UTC) ::::It might be edifying in all sorts of ways. Ironic twists (TR winning in 1912, Republican landslide in 1964, Dewey and Truman on the same ticket--well that wasn't so ironic as it was annoyingly obvious) are meant to add to the readers' enjoyment of the stories. Turtle Fan 21:28, June 11, 2010 (UTC) OTL sections I wonder if the OTL sections are necessary at all. They are barely relevant to Turtledove stories, and seem better suited to Wikipedia.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 20:57, October 10, 2016 (UTC) :I don't think they're needed in every case. In those where the ATL election closely resembles OTL, they might be of some interest, though those should be whittled down to just the most salient points. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:04, October 10, 2016 (UTC) 1980 election in Jefferson The 1980 Presidential election plays a role in "Typecasting", "Something Fishy", and "Always Something New" begins on election night, 1980. Reagan still wins and Carter's concession speech is depicted. The major change from OTL is that 51 states participated instead of 50, but it is depicted more or less within the four corners of HT's writing. Do we want to create the article or not? And if we do, do we format it as we do with other elections, or do we follow our more standard format, with an OTL section on the actual election, and then a "1980 Election in State of Jefferson" with more story specific ties. My vote is to create the article, but I'm not sure which format we should use. TR (talk) 23:39, January 9, 2020 (UTC) :It sounds like more trouble than it's worth, given the minimal OTL-ATL split.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 10:26, January 10, 2020 (UTC) :I agree, we should have an article but I too am unsure of the format. Would Bill Williamson being pissed-off at Carter for conceding before the western polls closed be included there or in the individual character articles? Or both of course. ML4E (talk) 21:23, January 10, 2020 (UTC) ::I suspect both, in varying degrees of detail. TR (talk) 01:25, January 11, 2020 (UTC) :::So, we're creating an article for the 1980 election in the State of Jefferson Stories but don't know how to format it? Nice! By the way, does it mention at all in the new SOJ Stories that Reagan wins Jefferson? --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 19:30, January 11, 2020 (UTC) :::::See first paragraph of this section: ASN starts on November 4, 1980. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" is set two weeks after Regan is inaugurated. Before I read the story, I wondered if the title might foreshadow an alternate outcome for March 30, 1981. TR (talk) 20:06, January 11, 2020 (UTC)